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June 16, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:27
June 16, 2008, Monday, Hour #3
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Hey, folks, welcome back.
Great to have you with us on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, Rush Limbaugh, and another excursion into broadcast excellence, the fastest three hours in media.
Telephone number if you'd like to join us, 800-282-2882.
And the email address is lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
June 10th, 2004, Tim Russert called in.
We talked to him for the whole hour on the program about his book, his upcoming book on his father, Big Russ.
And I wanted to play these.
It's about 10 minutes total here, and I wanted to play these sound bites to give you a flavor for Tim Russert off the air.
Tim Russert, the guy that he was.
We'll talk a little bit about politics, too, here.
And in these bites, you'll hear one of the reasons why Tim Russert was loved and respected by all in terms of politics.
He was a liberal, and he was a Democrat, but he was a student of politics as well.
He loved it, and he actually respected the people in it.
He didn't look at them as suspects.
Now, I was watching MSNBC coverage over the weekend.
Just tune in just to see what are they doing now?
And they would go get clips from Tim and his past work.
And for example, they'd get a clip of Russert interviewing McCain with McCain saying he doesn't know anything about economics.
They clearly, after 5 o'clock on Friday, the coverage of Tim Russert's death ceased to be about Tim, and it became about the media.
Now, I'm not talking about Meet the Press yesterday because I didn't see it.
I'm strictly talking about the cable gang.
We played to you for you, the clip from Chris Matthews trying to blame Bush and the Iraq war and lying to Tim Russert in order to get the war started and prosecuted.
And I told Snerdley, when we were leaving here Friday, I said, you watch it's not going to be long before somebody on that network, and I predicted somebody other than Matthews, somebody on that network is going to blame Bush for Russert's death, lying to him and causing all kinds of stress in the journalist community and this sort of thing.
And Chris Matthews got pretty damn close to fulfilling my prediction on Friday night.
So here's the first of the two bites.
Again, June 10th of 2004.
You know, Tim, before you appeared at 1 o'clock today, I was telling the audience of the dinner we had at Shula Steakhouse down here at PGA when you were telling me about this book.
And we shared stories about fathers and parents.
And you were really excited about doing this book.
You were down here with Luke, something about golf lessons, I think, for him.
And I've read the book, and you tell a story about you went back home after achieving a level of success, and you wanted to buy your dad a car.
It was my dad's 75th birthday, Rush, and I sent Big Russ catalogs, a Lexus catalog, and a Mercedes catalog and a Cadillac catalog.
And I said, you know, Dad, as you would say, top shelf.
You've never had a new car.
You always had used cars.
I guess they call them pre-owned now.
And I flew home to Buffalo for Thanksgiving, and I said, well, let's go get it.
He said, get in the car, let's go.
He drove two blocks.
And all of a sudden we pulled in the driveway and there's a big sign, Jack Atkins Ford.
I said, what is this?
And a guy appeared in the doorway in a Buffalo Bills windbreaker.
He said, there's Charlie.
He said, Charlie, here's the kid.
Show him the car.
We walked into the showroom, and there it is, a black Ford Crown Victoria.
I said, Dad, it's a cop car.
And Big Russ said, Charlie, show him that truck.
Look at that.
You can put a case of beer and a suitcase in that.
Charlie, show him the spare.
That's not a donut.
That's a real spare.
So we got the car.
We drove it off the lot, and I were heading home.
And I said, Dad, I have to ask you, you know, he could have had a Lexus or a Mercedes.
Why a Crown Vic?
He pulled over to the side of the road and put the car in park, which is a big deal for Big Russ to stop driving.
He said, I beat those guys in the war.
I don't want Alexis or Mercedes.
I said, oh, okay.
I said, how about a Cadillac?
He said, you want me to drive home to our neighborhood, big, spanking new Cadillac.
And the neighbors say, ah, Big Russ's kid made it on NBC and now he's showing off.
He said, that's not who I am.
I'm a Ford Crown Vic guy.
Even in receiving a gift rush, he was teaching me a lesson.
Well, the reason that story resonates, I don't mean to intrude on your story, but something similar happened to me.
I bought when I could finally do it, I bought my mom and dad a new car.
They wanted a Ford Taurus.
And so I got them sorry.
It was the happiest day of their lives.
They could never believe anybody would do something like this.
And later on, I wanted to get my mom a bigger car, and I tried to get her Lincoln town car.
And she just, I did.
I insisted on it for safety.
She didn't want it.
She wanted the Taurus for much the same kind of reasons that you've described with your father here.
And it was, you know, they were a unique generation of people.
They had to grow up a lot sooner than their kids did, and they had to learn there were things bigger than themselves a lot sooner than I did or than most of my generation did.
And it was, I actually studied, paid attention to them as they were bringing me up in case I was ever going to have to do it myself.
Well, you know, the operating thesis of my book is the older I get, the smarter my father seems to get.
And here's somebody who grew up in the Depression, left school in the 10th grade to go fight in World War II, involved a terrible plane crash, B-24 Liberator, six months in the hospital, then came home and started a second mission.
He worked two full-time jobs as a sanitation man and a truck driver, and he never whined and he never complained.
He would say, put your nose to the grindstone and hope for the best.
And to him, work, ethic, hard work, and optimism, they were the two stools that he stood on all through his life.
Now, is this book a tribute to him or is there a reason you want people to read this other than your dad?
I mean, obviously, you want people to read it, but what do you hope people take away from it?
I understand.
It's an affirmation of his life, but it's more than that.
And I call it Big Russ and me, father and son, lessons of life, because all the lessons my dad taught me about hard work, about discipline, about preparation, about faith, about accountability, about responsibility, those are just as applicable now as they were to me in the 50s and 60s.
I have a son, as you mentioned, 18 years old.
After I wrote the book, Rush, I reread it, and I realized I had written it as much for my son as for my dad.
And so I added a new chapter, an open letter for my son who goes off to college in the fall.
And because Luke's life is different than mine, he's growing up in Washington with more opportunity and more privilege and more access.
But I say in the book, Luke, his grandpa would say, the world doesn't owe you a favor.
Or put it this way, you're always, always loved, but you're never, never entitled.
And that's the thesis of the book, that in this country, the son of a garbage man can sit and interview George W. Bush in the Oval Office.
It's all reachable.
It's all doable.
But there's no shortcuts.
It's hard work, preparation, discipline, accountability.
When my dad retired from his first job rush, I drove him to turn in his pension papers, and the clerk said, Mr. Russert, you have 200 sick days.
I said, Dad, 200 sick days.
Why didn't you take them?
He said, because I wasn't sick.
And that's who we are.
Now they're mandatory.
Exactly.
Rush, these guys survived the Depression, won World War II, and came home and built the greatest middle class in the history of mankind.
Tim Russert, June 10th, 2004.
We busted up this just to avoid going 10 minutes in total length, but here is the second portion from the interview.
Are back with Little Russ, the son of Big Russ, Tim Russett, and his book about his father.
Say, Tim, you mentioned Luke, and I had to abbreviate the question prior to the end of the segment because there wasn't enough time to get your answer to it.
But I was going to ask you about Luke and his relationship with your father.
You know, there's a great age difference there, a generational divide.
Does Luke get your dad?
Does he ever?
And my dad, now, because he's 80 and retired finally, when he grew up, he was always working.
And so he didn't, he was, and I learned from the eloquence of his hard work.
He was not demonstrative and affectionate and those kinds of things as they are now viewed upon.
But the relationship with Luke is much different.
Luke runs to him when he sees him, sits down next to him.
My dad's got bear hugs for him and punching him and wrestling with him.
And then they talk.
And they talk and talk and talk.
And he opens up to Luke.
Luke asks him questions about the Depression, about World War II.
And now, after I wrote this book, most of the things that I do at Meet the Press, they go up in the air on a satellite, and there's no permanence to them.
This book has given such permanence to my relationship with my dad, my relationship with my son, but most important, my son's relationship with my dad, his grandpa.
And he said, Dad, now I really, he goes, I had no idea that what grandpa did in terms of the jobs, garbage man and truck driver.
I said, Luke, in one word, how would you describe what grandpa did for me?
He said, sacrifice.
And he's exactly right.
And this Father's Day, 2004, I hope that everyone who's had a chance to read this book will really take out just a few minutes after dad's no longer with us, just close their eyes and think about that one word.
These guys sacrificed everything for us.
When I said to my father, Dad, two jobs, two jobs.
I mean, how could he say some guys couldn't find one?
Dad, six months in a hospital from a plane crash.
That had to be tough.
It was tougher for the guys who died.
That innate optimism just galvanized them to sacrifice.
And I just want to thank him and thank all the dads out there who made us what we are.
I stand on his shoulders.
I hope my son will stand on mine proudly, just as proudly someday.
That's what I was talking about earlier.
It was never about your dad.
Life was never about him.
I mean, two jobs is what it took.
What's the big deal?
He was doing what he had to do.
He wasn't trying to impress anybody.
He wasn't trying to attract attention.
He was trying to fulfill a responsibility.
And he did whatever it took.
Now, let me, I want to reverse things on you.
Obviously, you're proud of your dad, and you've written this tribute to him, and it's become what it's become.
What about your dad and you?
You've reached a pinnacle, too, and I'm sure you have done better than any parent would expect a child to do.
We all hope, parents all hope children do well, but you've reached a pinnacle.
How has that affected him?
And when did he know, Tim, that you were on to something that was special in terms of his perspective?
Probably 13 years ago when I started Meet the Press, and he began to watch a program with his son on that he had watched since he was a person growing up in the 50s and 60s with Lawrence Bivak.
And then he saw me with the Pope, and that was very, very important to him.
He saw the Pope blessing his grandson and his son.
Rush, I call him every day, and particularly on Mondays are my favorites.
My political friends say that Big Russ is the cheapest and most accurate focus group they could have because he sees right through it.
And if Big Russ calls you a phony, you're finished.
That guy's a phony.
And that doesn't mean it's ideological.
It's whether you are willing to answer questions truthfully or honestly.
Can you give us some names of some phonies as identified by Big Russ?
They won't come back on my program.
That's the problem.
But he also says, Rush, every Monday we conclude our conversation, and I say, you know, take care, Daddy.
He said, I still can't believe they pay you all this money to BS on the air.
He just keeps me grounded right there.
He knows exactly it.
You'll love this.
He came up.
He was in Buffalo, and the NBC came up and did an interview with us on the book.
And there's a chapter I have on food.
My dad loves food.
And the subtitle is You Gotta Eat.
He'll call you on your birthday, 7 o'clock in the morning.
Happy birthday.
What are you having for dinner?
I said, Dad, I haven't had breakfast yet.
No, you got to eat.
You got to eat.
So the interviewer said to Big Russ, Where'd this phrase, you got to eat, come from, Big Russ?
He said, Well, my kid got it half right.
Oh, my heart sank.
You know, here's my book.
I poured my heart into it, and here's my dad correcting me.
He said, I actually got the expression from Dr. Matty Burke, who used to teach me, You got to eat if you're going to drink.
That's big Russ.
Well, I mean, there's a guy that's honest from the front and back.
That's exactly right.
That's Tim Russert.
We've got one more sound bite in which I asked him, we'll have it after the break, who's going to do this when he no longer does it.
Meet the press.
Back after this.
Final soundbite now from the interview we have with Tim Russert, June 10th, 2004.
When you get to your rank, succession becomes something that's often discussed.
You will eventually become president of the news division of NBC.
Who will you hire to replace you as the moderator at Meet the Press?
You couldn't give me that job, Rush.
Believe me.
In 2000, I signed a 12-year contract through 2012 to be the moderator of Meet the Press, period.
Unlike a lot of other people on television who want to go into prime time and do all these other things, I don't want to do anything else.
I want to play for the same team my whole life.
My favorite baseball player growing up was Yogi Bera, this small Italian kid who didn't look like a baseball player who just got it done and won championships, played for the Yankees his whole life.
I don't look like I belong on TV, but I try to get it done, and I want to do my job the rest of my life, and then so be it.
If I got hit by a truck tomorrow, who should take over?
That's a good question.
What do you think, Rush?
I haven't thought about it.
And all candidates, why I asked you.
You are such a fixture.
I don't see anybody else in that chair.
Well, thanks.
Should I nominate you?
Look, Tim, I appreciate that would fly.
You ought to try it, Tim.
Say what happens to you.
Nominate me.
That's Tim Russert from June 10th, 2004 on this program.
During that, it might have been another interview.
I'm not sure which.
But I think it was another interview.
I asked him what he thought of the Reagan funeral.
He goes, it had occurred just prior to our discussion.
I think it was this interview.
And the way he described the Reagan funeral and what it meant to him and what it taught him about how beloved a figure Reagan was in the country when most people in Washington were shocked by that.
And he openly talked about that.
He understood who Reagan was.
He went through the whole litany of Reagan's successes, why he was a great president.
It was just a wonderful thing to hear.
But he was up to speed on everything that was happening in Washington and in the country.
And he's one of a kind.
I mean, there is nobody they can put in that chair to replace him.
There just isn't.
They don't have anybody.
They haven't been cultivating anybody.
I mean, do you realize, do you know the story of Tim Russert getting this job?
He had worked for Cuomo, and somehow he ended up in the executive suite in New York at 30 Rocket NBC.
I think it was Lawrence Grossman then who hired him.
And at the time, Meet the Press had a moderator and three journalists versus the one politician who was the guest.
And I think it was Lawrence Spivak, who was the last one, maybe Garrett Utley.
And out of the blue, Michael Gartner, who was running NBC at the time, said, Tim, we want you to do this show.
He had never been on television.
The reason they wanted him to do the show was that the NBC has executive meetings every morning in the president's suite.
And they serve breakfast in there, and Russert would go into those meetings and just dazzle everybody with inside information on politics and issues and what was coming down the pike and what he knew.
And it was from those meetings where he was just entertaining the group before the meetings got started that Michael Gartner said, you know, why don't you host Meet the Press?
And he said, no way.
I've never been, you look at my face.
It looks like I've been carved out of a potato.
No way.
And they finally, in 1991, he started working NBC, I think, in 84, 88.
In 1991, they asked him to do it, and he did it.
And I first met him in 1992 in Houston at a party at the Republican convention that the Novak, Evans and Novak threw.
And the first thing I noticed about Tim Russert, and I put this on our website on Friday afternoon, he had this perpetual smile built onto his face.
Every time you saw Tim Russert, he was smiling.
It was just permanently etched on his face.
Russert was the guy who asked me to join him in Brokoff for election night coverage in the 2002 midterms.
That was no other network would have ever, ever done that.
And he got a lot of heat from inside the drive-by media circles at the time.
It had a lot of oil.
Yes, it did.
It got a lot of audience.
And he was invited me on Meet the Press.
This was revolutionary.
And then he turned that program into his, you know, he was not a moderator.
I mean, he became a prosecutor, in essence, and totally redid the format of that program.
He treated everybody the same.
Nobody was any better than anybody else.
And he's going to, it is impossible.
There's nobody that we know of that could replace him.
Like, he was not known when he replaced Speabak.
On Friday, ladies and gentlemen, we reported to you that Countrywide Financial, the home mortgage bunch, largest mortgage lender at the center of the housing crisis, regularly gave loans on favorable terms to prominent lawmakers and former cabinet members.
The preferential treatment for senators included Democrat Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and a recent presidential candidate, was approved by Angelo Mozzillo, the chief executive of Countrywide Financial.
The Washington Post then reported on this on Saturday.
Condon Ask Portfolio Magazine first broke the story on Wednesday, saying the recipients of the favorable terms were known as friends of Angelo in internal company documents and emails.
Kent Conrad also received favorable mortgage interest rates from Countrywide.
And now the story is today, by the way, that Kent Conrad, the Senate Budget Committee chairman, said he's donating $10,500 to charity and refinancing his loan on an apartment building after reviewing documents showing he received special treatment from Countrywide Financial Corp.
Conrad said, it appears that Countrywide waived one point on his mortgage for a Bethany Beach, Delaware vacation home.
He said he would donate the equivalent amount of money to Habitat for Humanity.
So once again, Kent Conrad, among the smartest 100 guys in government, sitting up there not knowing that he got a favorable preferential loan from Countrywide.
He read about it in a newspaper, went, Shazam, and he looked at his loan docs and shazam again.
And so I'm going to donate that money to charity.
These guys are out running around now saying that all these guys, they had no clue.
Here, they're being called the Countrywide Six.
And here are the names of politicians, ladies and gentlemen, with favorable mortgage rates from Countrywide.
Jim Johnson, former chief of Fannie Mae, Obama advisor, longtime Democrat Party hack.
He had to quit from the Obama campaign.
He was not the Jim Johnson Obama knew.
Franklin Raines, former chairman, chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, who served as Clinton's budget director and retired from Fannie Mae to halt a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into accounting regularities, irregularities while he was there.
Donna Shalala, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, who in 1993, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, along with several other groups, filed a lawsuit against her over closed-door meetings related to Hillary Care, socialized health care plan.
And since leaving the administration was embroiled in scandals at the University of Florida due to her extravagant lifestyle, she was just awarded the Medal of Honor last week by President Bush.
But she got a favorable loan.
Richard Holbrook, former U.N. Ambassador, Assistant Secretary of State, who, as U.N. ambassador, ignored whistleblower reports about the infamous oil-for-food scandals.
Then there is Senator Chris Dodd, who oversees the U.S. mortgage industry as chairman of the banking committee, and Kent Conrad, who we have spoken of.
The Countrywide Six, as dubbed by John Bender at enterstage right.com.
It's interesting that the Wall Street Journal has now gotten into the act on this.
The Wall Street Journal is suggesting here that this be investigated.
For the sake of its shareholders and taxpayers who are ultimately on the hook, Fannie Mae should immediately launch an internal investigation into the terms offered to Countrywide.
Because I forgot to mention to you, the Congress, Pelosi and these Democrats are offering legislation to bail out the mortgage industry and some borrowers, a $300 million deal to bail out some of these lenders as well, and Countryside's one of them.
And so the Wall Street Journal said, wait a minute, we need to launch an investigation into the terms offered to Countrywide and exactly what roles Mr. Johnson and Mr. Reigns played in the negotiation of these terms.
Did these men exert any pressure on Fannie Mae employees to do business with Countrywide?
They also say that Congress needs a full accounting of the contacts between Countrywide and the politicians receiving favors from the lender.
Did Countrywide ask for and receive assistance from the friends of Angelo?
With Senate Banking Chairman Dodd at the center of the scandal, Ranking Member Richard Shelby and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank will have to lead the inquiry.
But taxpayers should not have to wait for the results of an investigation.
Democrats in Congress are trying to pass a bailout from mortgage borrowers and lenders like Countrywide, and they have been holding reform of Fannie Mae and its cousin Freddie Mac hostage to get President Bush to agree to it.
Dodd's one of the main hostage takers.
It's time that he and Barney Frank dropped this political ransom taking and finally subjected Fanny and Freddie to tough oversight.
Meanwhile, until it's clear how much Countrywide will benefit from Senator Dodd's proposed $300 billion mortgage rescue and exactly how Mr. Dodd came to do business with Countrywide, Congress should call a halt to legislating bailouts.
Taxpayers deserve no less.
Now, an interesting question here: where's Obama?
I mean, this guy's in the Senate when this is happening.
He's the Democrat presidential nominee.
Where's Obama in this?
Folks, the Democrats who are out there just ripping these predatory lenders all to hell and proposing bailouts got sweetheart loans from countrywide.
Democrats, every one of them.
And I thought it was the culture of corruption that sent the Republicans to the minority in the November 2006 elections.
Here is Barbara in where we go, Ackworth, Georgia.
Barbara, I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hey, hi.
I'm a native of North Dakota.
I haven't lived there for 20 years, but I consider it my home.
And I am furious about Senator Conrad's sweetheart deal.
And I was reading in the paper today, Associated Press story, that he said he did not think for one moment and that no one ever suggested that he was getting special treatment.
But my question is: why did you call a CEO of a company to get a common mortgage loan?
And how do you get that number?
Not only that, there's a story also in the AAP that Conrad had no clue.
Conrad had no clue that he got this loan.
He just now, after the stories had, happened to be reviewing the loan papers, and he saw that Countrywide whacked a percentage point off of his rate.
So he is going to send the equivalent $10,500 to a charity.
Well, I think the people of North Dakota, since he works for them and he used his position to better himself, that they need to call Conrad's office and demand that he work for them also and get them a sweetheart deal.
Well, I think this is terrible.
I do too.
And it's typical, is it not?
These people getting sweetheart deals, they sit along as innocent bystanders and spectators.
They are the reason this whole thing happened in the first place.
Congress passed legislation back during the Clinton years demanding that lenders make money available to people that really were low risk or high risk and had very little ability to pay it back, particularly on adjustable rate mortgages.
And then when the adjustable rate got adjusted upwards, why these poor people, why they had no clue what they had said, excuse me, who does not know what ARM stands for?
What does adjustable rate mortgage, just how much of an education do you not have in order to not know what adjustable rate mortgage is when the lender tells you?
And so this whole thing got started by Congress.
Now they sit around and accept their sweetheart deals and then act like they had no clue.
Can I just tell you one more thing?
My 81-year-old mother thought the news world revolved around Tim Russert, and she was devastated on Saturday and called all of us that were around his age to say, take care of yourself, please.
So because I think that my news world revolves around you, consider this my phone call to you.
Well, thank you.
Take care of yourself.
I appreciate that very much.
I've had you're not first in line, let me assure you, but you're the first to call me on the program to do that, and I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Thank you, Barbara.
Quick timeout.
We've got to take a break.
No, let me grab this call first.
I had Cookie get the segment of the interview discussing the Reagan funeral with Russert.
And I want you to hear this after the break.
But first, this is Ron in Wichita.
Hello, sir.
Glad you waited.
Welcome to the program.
Yes, Rush.
Regarding the Bob Beckle comment regarding the rumor that he'd heard that he thought was really a big threat.
You know about the quickest way to tell them somebody's lying is when they overemphasize their statement.
A little bit too much drama involved.
First time I heard Bob Beckle say that, the first thing that rang in my head.
Hillary Clinton supporter.
Somebody starts a rumor.
Bob Beckle instantiates the rumor.
For the benefit of Hillary Clinton.
Well, but the thing is, I think, and I'm going to have to double-check this.
I think that Beckle's in the tank for Obama.
And I think Beckle's been in the tank for Obama in a while, but I'm not sure.
That's my memory.
I'm going to have to check that.
I think you could be right if my memory is wrong.
If I'm right, he had another purpose.
And his purpose was specifically to rope in conservatives to spread the thing around using his imprimatur as credibility for it.
Sure, sure.
Thereby allowing the Obama camp to then walk around trying to discredit all these conservatives.
In other words, it was a trap.
It was a trap that Beckle was laying.
I think that's what was going on.
We'll be right back.
Stay with us.
Hi, and welcome back.
I'm going to have to save this Russert mite talking about the Reagan funeral till tomorrow.
It is, I can't break it up.
I can't edit it.
It would lose some of its zeal.
It's longer than we have left.
Laguna Beach, California.
Gene, glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Rush, you are the man.
I do want to say about this whitey tape.
What do I care about somebody saying something about Whitey Michelle Obama?
She's made so many horrible statements about change.
Barack will make you change.
First time being proud of our country.
America's a mean country.
I think this is all a democratic effort to inoculate her so that the statements that she's already made that everything will be dismissed.
Well, it's not your, you're exactly right, but there's another step to this.
Not only is it to inoculate her and Barack, it is to frighten and intimidate people like me from refraining from criticizing her any at all in the future for fear that the hell of the drive-by media and the Obama campaign will rain down on us.
What they don't understand, what I've tried to tell them, and they still won't understand, the people in the drive-by media did not make me.
The AP had nothing to do with building me up and making people interested in me.
I did that.
The AP can't destroy me.
Obama can't destroy me, not with news coverage anyway.
Fairness doctrine, you know, restrictive on free speech rights.
Obama could do that.
But the media is not going to be able to say, they're not going to intimidate anybody here.
In fact, the AP, get this.
I just read this.
The AP has just issued a new policy prohibiting bloggers or setting guidelines on bloggers for what they can use on their blogs from AP.
Now, it's being disguised as, hey, you bloggers aren't paying us for this.
And the fair usage, you're vastly exceeding what's available for fair usage.
But this is an all-out war now.
And the bloggers are probably, screw you, ABC.
We're not going to mention you, period, then.
Well, that's not going to go for me.
I'm going to keep mentioning AP, but they're not going to intimidate me.
But I think that in addition to inoculating everybody or her, Gene, they're trying to also intimidate people into just not talking about her.
They know they've got a problem with her.
They know they've got a huge problem.
She just goes off the handle and says things, and they don't know what is going to be next.
They are surrounding her with a new staff of women that are just.
They just hired Patty Salise Doyle from the Clinton campaign.
How do you handle Michelle Mybel?
You surround her.
Democrat operative Stephanie Cutter joining the Obama campaign, senior advisor, chief of staff to Michelle Obama.
Cutter, a longtime aide to Senator Kennedy, served as communications director to Senator Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign.
Her role underscores a growing concern with the campaign and among outside allies that Michelle's becoming a lightning rod for the opposition.
So they basically surrounded her with a woman that's going to put duct tape on her mouth.
And whenever they want her to speak, they're going to give her the script and they say, do you promise to stick to it?
And if Michelle Mybel says this, she nods her head yes, and they rip the duct tape off and then they'll send her out to speak.
They know.
They know that they have a big problem.
Hey, folks, before I get out, Brian, when is the Astra coming from General Motors?
We get it Wednesday.
GM is bringing us their latest car for us to tool around in, the Saturn Astra.
And this is, by the way, you ought to look at this on the website.
It is based on one of General Motors' best-selling European models.
In fact, I think it's one of the biggest selling executive vehicles used by executives in Europe, the Saturn Astra.
It's got 30 miles to the gallon.
It's got this automatic transition that puts you into neutral immediately when you go to a stoplight so as to save on gas and emissions.
It's called neutral idle technology.
When the car stops at a light, the transmission shifts to neutral automatically saving gas.
And then you don't have to shift.
You just bam, you just hit the gas when the light turns green and you peel out.
They have models, more models.
They have an EPA estimated 30 miles per gallon or better on the highway than any other manufacturer.
But this thing is cool and it's going to be here Wednesday.
Sadly for us, we had to turn in the Tahoe hybrid.
But this is the replacement.
You can see more information on the Saturn Astra at rushlimbaugh.com.
And we love General Motors here.
Unlike a number of institutions in this country, we do not think the auto industry ought to be hated.
And we do not think it ought to be looked down.
We love General Motors, and we wish them the best, and that's why we're helping them out here.
And with our help, they are going to be successful.
They know it, and that's why they're with us quickly.
Marty in Washington, D.C., nice to have you here, sir.
45 seconds, but I wanted to get to you.
Thanks, Rush.
I don't know if you already said it, but I think the highest compliment you can pay Tim Russ is if it wasn't for him, Hillary would be the presumptive presidential nominee right now.
Driver's licenses, illegal driver's licenses question.
That's at the debate in Philadelphia.
That's exactly right.
What other drive-eye would have had the stones to ask a question that Rush Limbaugh wanted to know?
And you got to, honestly, you got to think that, you know, I'm sure her press secretary issued some kind of syrupy condolence, but you've got to believe right now she's sitting there thinking, damn, you died six months too late.
Well, now, we don't know what's in Mrs. Clinton's mind.
No, no, no.
We've got to go to a brief timeout here.
We don't know what she's thinking.
Well, it's great to be back and start the week with a summer spectacular as today was.
We take no prisoners.
We take no names.
Hope you have a wonderful afternoon and evening.
We'll be back tomorrow, revved up, ready to do it again.
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